Seattle toasts a new champion

Storm's WNBA crown is city's first pro title in 25 years

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Enveloped by the unrestrained joy of 17,027 fans in sold-out KeyArena, the Seattle Storm captured the eighth WNBA championship with a 74-60 victory over a game but overmatched Connecticut Sun, ending a 25-year title drought for a city starved for a professional winner.

Up just a point at halftime, the Storm took control behind the scrappy, frenetic play of series MVP Betty Lennox, who spun, twisted, dove and careened across the floor for a game-high 23 points, 14 of which came in the second half.

"I'm speechless," Lennox told the crowd after receiving the award.

The victory, Seattle's first such celebration since the 1979 Sonics won the NBA crown, made Storm coach Anne Donovan the first female coach to win a league title. It also virtually guaranteed her the helm of the 2008 Olympic team.

In 2000, the Storm won only six games. A year later, they drafted a generally unknown 18-year-old from Australia called Lauren Jackson.

They won 10 games.

A year after that, in a marvelous moment of inspired luck and karma, the Storm again ended up with the No. 1 pick, and selected a guard from Connecticut fresh off a pair of national titles. Her name was Sue Bird.

They won 17 games and made the playoffs.

Last year, Donovan's first as Lin Dunn's replacement, the Storm talked championship, but a late-season slide left them home for the playoffs.

This season, the Storm had a clearly articulated goal of winning it all. The team picked up key additions, Lennox, forward Sheri Sam and forward Janell Burse. They rolled through the regular season 20-14, before twice fighting back from the brink of elimination in the playoffs.

During the regular season, the Storm typically was cheered on by a dedicated fan base of about 7,000, with a curtain obscuring the unnecessary upper-level seats at the Key.

That curtain was pulled away for the finals, and behind it was quite a festive show. Previously empty seats were brimming with fans sporting loony green and yellow wigs, painted faces, carrying homemade signs aplenty and pounding thundersticks.

There were businessmen hauling beers and foot-long hot dogs, long-haired rockers chilling out and grandmas howling. There were fathers with daughters and sons with two mommies. There were lots of kids sporting official Sue Bird jerseys.

"It was abuzz in the entire city," Storm and Sonics owner Howard Schultz said. "The whole city is turned on."

The crowd's howls reached the 112-decibel level, according to the official P-I noise gauge, when a Lennox drive gave the Storm a 16-point lead with six minutes left, ending the Sun's hope for a comeback. That was the midpoint of a Lennox frenzy, in which she sealed the victory with nine consecutive points.

Jackson finished with 13 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two blocks. Bird scored all eight of her points in the second half and added six assists and a steal.

With the game in hand, amid the crescendo of a celebrating crowd, Donovan removed Bird and Jackson with 1:26 left.

There were bear hugs all around on the bench.

Then, a few moments later, came Lennox, and the crowd erupted for the former castoff, a self-proclaimed country girl from Oklahoma. In three previous WNBA stops, she built a reputation as a problem child.

After scoring 67 points in the Storm's 2-1 series win, she was only a problem for the Sun, hamming it up with some spectacular late moves that left the crowd screaming.

"I was in a zone out there," Lennox said. "I was having fun. I love the game of basketball."

But it wasn't just the stars who brought the title to Seattle.

The Storm thundered out of the gate, led unexpectedly by Kamila Vodichkova, one of two players remaining from the inaugural 2000 team, who had struggled offensively since mid-July.

She scored 11 in the first seven minutes, finishing with 14, as the Storm rolled to a 20-11 lead. She had reached double figures three times in the past 23 games, and not once during the playoffs.